Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

The best organizing system

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The best organizing system is the one you useWhen it comes to organizing systems, there aren’t many absolutes. But there’s one thing I know for sure: The best organizing system is the one that works for you.

An organizing system that seems great in concept isn’t great unless you use it. And an organizing system that to the outside world might appear flawed is an excellent system if you use it to your satisfaction.

Here are some signs that your genealogy organizing system isn’t doing its job:

  • You can’t find the information you seek without a lot of effort
  • You find yourself thinking, “It’s around here somewhere.”
  • Your workspace is cluttered
  • You have an overwhelming backlog
  • You feel resistance to organizing your research

If you hear yourself saying, “My organizing system would be great, if only I would use it,” take that as a clue that your organizing system isn’t great, for you. You might need to tweak your system. Or you might even need a complete overhaul.

For example, you might switch from binders to folders, if you find yourself with a perpetual pile of papers or if you have papers stuck into the binders without being hole punched or put into sheet protectors. (I’m a folder, not a binder, person.) Personally over the last couple of years I’ve made a shift away from printing and filing everything to saving documents on my hard drive. That’s a big shift, but it’s working for me.

Here are some of the characteristics I look for in a great organizing system:

  • It’s easy to implement
  • It’s intuitive
  • It’s as complex as it needs to be and not a bit more
  • It’s used

If you find yourself resisting the organizing aspect of your genealogy research, perhaps you could consider how you might make your system better for you. Remember, there’s no perfect way to organize.

 

Organizing little by little

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calendarsnippetHere’s one thing I know: Getting or keeping your family history research organized doesn’t happen without a little effort. (Of course, that’s true of organizing most aspects of our lives!) There never seems to be enough time to do genealogy research, let alone time to organize it.

But if you snatch little pockets of time to catch up on your organizing, you can make great strides. For example, 15 minutes spent on filing unfiled genealogy documents (either electronic or paper) is time well spent. It allows you to familiarize yourself with your documents and the holes you have in your research. It makes you feel more in control. You can get rid of any duplicates you come across. And, of course, it helps you find what you need when you’re looking for something, because documents are where they’re supposed to be.

One thing that can help is keeping an organizing task list so you can jump right into it when you carve out some time for it. My new genealogy to-do list helps me know what to work on when I have some time for research. But I think it’s a good idea to spend some time at least once a week organizing the research. Toward that end, I think that in addition to having a genealogy to-do list for each branch of my family, I’ll make one for organizing tasks. That’ll make it easier for me to just do something. (I’ll be posting a Genealogy To-Do List printable very soon so you can use my form, if you’d like.)

So here’s my challenge for you today: Think about how often you want to do family history research. And then think about when you might work on organizing your research. In this last month of the year, maybe you can carve out a little time for organizing. Doing it little by little, you’ll make progress. If you wait for a free weekend when you feel like organizing, you may never get it done.

Like many people, I have a very busy December coming up. But I’ve found that I get more done when I’m really busy. So for this December, I’m going to commit to spending at least a half hour a week organizing my genealogy research. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up two hours over the course of the month (actually, two and a half, since December started on a Monday this year). And one can get a lot done in two focused hours. To set myself up for success, I’ve scheduled five half-hour sessions on my calendar.

I’ll try to keep track of what I accomplish in that time and at the end of the month, I’ll post my progress here. I hope to be pleasantly surprised by all I can get done in those little, focused pockets of time.

 

The curse of abundance

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deathcertificatesarrayIn my role as a professional organizer, I often help people deal with an overabundance of items. Our work together allows my clients let go excess and organize those meaningful things they decide to keep. It’s very rewarding work and it’s led me to believe fervently that one’s life is easier when you streamline your possessions to those you use and love.

I’ve learned that when I have too much of an item–even something great–it becomes much less meaningful. Years ago I noticed that if I had a Costco-sized package of Oreos I wouldn’t eat any of them. But if I bought a small package of a treat, I’d enjoy a few at a time until they were gone.

What does this have to with genealogy research? Well, believe it or not at the moment I feel like I have an overabundance of death certificates and they’re stressing me out a bit. My September research trip resulted in my putting my hands on a few death certificates. Those led me to others and right now I’m looking at a small pile of five death certificates. All of them came my way as paper copies, so I need to scan them and file them electronically, in addition to filing the actual pieces of paper. I think I’ve gleaned all the information off them and put them into Reunion, but I want to take another pass at them to make sure I’m not missing anything.

If I had just one death certificate, I’d get the task taken care of lickety split. But since I have five, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and dragging my heels a little. Crazy, isn’t it? Overabundance can lead to paralysis.

I love finding death certificates. I’m fortunate that I have Missouri ancestors and here in Missouri it’s incredibly easy to download death certificates. Yet here I find myself not appreciating my bounty just because I have too much.

The solution? Like any big project, I need to do a little at a time. I could break the project down into steps (scanning, for instance) and do that step for all the certificates, then move on to the next one. Or I could just process each certificate separately. Or I could stop overthinking this and just do something. (In order to get the photo for this post I needed to take my death certificates to my ScanSnap SV600 contactless scanner, so I went ahead and scanned all of them. At least I’ve done something!)

All this speaks to the benefit of handling my genealogy findings as soon as they come in. If I let tasks pile up, they turn into chores instead of treats.

 

What do you want to read about?

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Almost a year ago, I did a poll of Organize Your Family History readers to find out what types of articles are most useful to you. 101 people responded, which was fantastic.

Since then, readership has grown and I thought it might be time to check back with you. I’m interested in knowing what types of articles you would find interesting to read here. The poll is identical, but please do respond even if you responded a year ago.

Thank you so much! I am so grateful for the input I get from readers of this blog. You’ve helped me immeasurably and I want to write posts that help you in return.